in 1550, the same kind of a laborer earned 4 pence in a day. He paid 1 shilling 10-1/2 pence for a bushel of wheat and £1 16 shillings 7 pence for an ox. This means that he paid nearly six days' (about 80 hours') labor for his bushel of wheat, and 110 days' (1540 hours') labor for his ox. The high price of the latter was justified by its great improvement in weight and quality.
IN THE FORTY-THIRD YEAR OF ELIZABETH
the coinage was lowered to about its present weight. In 1675, therefore, we see the laborer getting 7-1/2 pence for a day's service. But he was compelled to pay 4 shillings 6 pence for a bushel of wheat, and £3 6 shillings for an ox. He thus was going backward, for temporary reasons, however, and had to pay seven days' (98 hours') labor for his bushel of wheat and 110 days' (1540 hours') labor for his ox. The ox had twice as much beef on him as the ox of 1350.
AND STILL FOR ANOTHER HUNDRED YEARS,
the march of the laborer upward was retarded by wars, famines, and "deaths," as their plagues were called. In 1795, one of the darkest of those dark years, we find the skilled laborer receiving 1 shilling 5-1/4 pence per day (still of fourteen hours in winter, fifteen in summer). He paid 7 shillings 10 pence for a bushel of wheat and £16 8 shillings for an ox. This means that he paid five days' (70 hours') labor for his bushel of wheat and 119 days' (1666 hours') labor for his ox. The ox was what is technically called "a fair critter."
TO-DAY THE SAME LABORER,
working ten hours a day—counting all the perquisites which have fallen to his lot,—the crumbs from the tables of his prosperous superiors,—the same laborer, I say, gets 3 shillings a day. He pays 6 shillings for a bushel of wheat and £12 for an ox. This means that he pays two days' (twenty hours') labor for his bushel of wheat and 80 days' (800 hours') labor for his ox. The ox rates better than a butchers' "beast," as the English say. In the meantime,
THE CHILDREN OF THE LABORER
have sailed across the ocean and settled in a land where the fields yield steady harvests and where the genius of the inventor has exceeded with its results the wonders of the Arabian Nights. In this land of freedom and plenty the day laborer gets $1.50 a day. He pays 90 cents to $1.30 for a bushel of wheat, and if he desire such food, he can pay $80 for a monster ox weighing 1600 pounds. He thus pays less than a day's labor of ten hours for his bushel of wheat, and about fifty-three days' (530 hours') labor for his ox. He does not need this high grade of meat, however, as few English laborers ever buy from even the round of such beef, and no ordinary American householder in city or country gets as good once a year.
PROGRESS IN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS.